Cross countries separation EU

[BenB]

Paco, I know during weekends and probably now during holiday season you might not get as many replies as usual. And I´m no vet but I can tell you this -

Do NOT send her that present and do not try to remind her of your past together. That will not have any positive effect!

I had all the same thoughts as you many months ago. My W and I had been together for close to 9 years but only married for 7 months before she "changed". Our wedding day was August 4, 2018. I have never seen so many people cry and during our first dance, I had a very well known pianist play the Piano guys version of Ed Sheeran´s "Perfect". We spent 3 months practicing our dance and when we were finished, everyone erupted in applause and I saw so many crying. Including my W and I.

I could not believe she had forgotten about this magical moment and wanted to remind her. We still hadn´t seen any of the videos from the wedding as I had to download close to 300Gb and needed a new hard drive for that so one day I went and bought one, downloaded it and edited the video of our dance, crying my eyes out while watching it. But then I found this forum and started to get a better understanding of why she is doing what she is doing and decided not to give that to her. One day when I felt weak and badly missed her affection and love, I told her "hey so you know, I have all our videos now from the wedding now, edited and all". Her response was just "mhm". She didn´t care. I´m so glad that´s all I said. I would have regretted it so much if I had given it to her as a gift.

All it would have done is remind her how she no longer feels that way and on top of that she would have felt pressure which is the last thing you want her to feel now.

Regarding people around you saying she seems happy, that is completely normal at this point. Often prior to BD they feel something is wrong and that builds until they finally drop the bomb. It´s the same way many break ups work. They can fear having to do that, the confrontation of it but after it´s done, it´s this sense of freedom they feel. Like the hard part is over, now it´s good times ahead and smooth sailing from now on(they think).

What was most painful for me during this time was that I would wake up every morning thinking for a short moment that everything is normal and then I´m reminded that I´m living my worst nightmare, I´m losing the love of my life, my sweetheart. I would get up to get ready to work out since that was all that reduced my anxiety slightly and I felt like I was living in a horror movie. As I walked out of the bedroom, I would hear my W singing in the shower with songs playing from the portable speaker. Here I was living in this nightmare horror movie and my W was happier than ever.

Your family and friends say that because they are emotionally detached from the situation. They look at you and see a great guy who is making an effort and has love for his family and feel you deserve better. I tell my family very little about my situation with my STBXW but I can still tell they have completely changed their opinion on her. They know me and know all I have done for her and probably think "who does she think she is letting go of Ben who´s done everything for her". If only they knew all the things she´s actually done... If you had a friend who was going through the same as you and his W treated him the way your W treats you, what would you recommend him to do?

Paco, be the best man you can be and it sounds like you are on your way. Just like you I worked out and studied what to eat. When my nightmare began in February I weighed over 94kg(207lbs) and my body fat was 30.6%. Last month I was down to 67kg(147lbs) and 9.2% body fat. I have read so many books and pages on this forum, I have learned to calm my own anxiety, to quiet my mind, I have learned not to need anyone elses validation to feel better. It´s a journey but would I trade all this new knowledge and state of mind I´m in to have my wife back? Absolutely not! Maybe one day I´ll meet her again but my focus is now on me. She has her journey, I have mine. Paco, this, what is happening to you, it is a blessing in disguise if you learn to see it that way. You have been given the gift of time. Use it wisely.