Bud, welcome to the forums. Sorry you're going through this! First, you're not going to like our advice because it's going to seem very counter-intuitive to what your heart is telling you to do. But as IW said, you've got to back off and give her time and space. You've got to quit questioning her, quit pressuring her, quit moping around her and being desperate and needy. All of that is NOT attractive. She says she's done, and she means it... for now. That may change later but for now you need to understand she has NO DESIRE to work on things or to even talk about it. She doesn't want you to fix the problems, do more housework, pay more attention to her. In fact those things will just drive her farther away because she'll see it all as "too little too late" or tricks to get her back. So you pull back. You read Sandi's rules and you behave like that when you're around her. You learn to be VERY scarce. It seems wrong, but it's what works and it's what she wants.
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(the only reason she will have marriage counseling is to help me come to terms with it).
Do not go to MC. She will just use it as leverage for a separation/ divorce.
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I became really unsettled and it became obvious to me that I need to sort myself out which I have taken responsibility for , I have had, and I am still having counselling and try and meditation(mindfulness) every day, which over time the last 4/5 months has help loads. I still have a way to go but I have made loads of progress.
Awesome, that's perfect! Do it for yourself, and over time she will see your changes and learn they are real and not just tricks. But it will take many months for her to believe it.
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I think she wanted me to move out.
Don't move out! We've seen LBS's move out in the hopes of appeasing the WAS and end up sleeping on friend's couches or in their parents' basement while the WAS is living like a queen in the family home and even having OM over for fun times. I've even seen two instances where OM moved into the family home and the LBS was relegated to waiting on his own damned porch to drop off and pick up kids. It doesn't get much more emasculating than that.
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I have moved into the spare room.
You shouldn't have done that. She's the one that wants out of the M, she should be the one that goes and sleeps somewhere else. If the marital home is the castle, the master bed is the throne. You shouldn't surrender the throne. Your attitude should be "I'm sleeping here, you can sleep here or in the spare bedroom or in the bathtub or the doghouse, I don't care." We always advice LBS's to move back into the bedroom. Will she like it? No. Will she complain about it? More than likely. Should you back down? NO! She has lost respect for you, this is a step in earning it back.
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I am not ready to just give up on 15 years just for the sake of a couple of years where we have lost our way but it is so difficult when she has said she doesn’t love me in that way anymore.
The woman you knew and loved is gone. She's been replaced by a WAS. You're clinging to the notion that you've got to hang on until your old W comes back, but that is going to take a very long time. It took my XW a good 3 years before parts of her "old self" started returning. And even now almost 8 years later I'd say she's about 50% of her old self. It doesn't always take them that long, but the point I'm trying to make is you need a lot of patience.
