[ScottB]

Quick Summary: 2 kids, 12, 9. Married 15 years. Wife had an EA that ended 3.5 years ago. We were in counseling and then she had decided she wanted a divorce. That was 2.5 years ago. She stated unequivocally she wanted one again 2 months later and I asked for 6 months, she gave me 3.

That deadline came and we were in counseling with a new counselor. She said I needed to stop being so fixated on the date and she stopped asking for a divorce but we continued in counseling. Things improved, but not back to the way they were, at the same time things would get worse. It felt like riding a roller coaster.

We went away to a marriage retreat for troubled couples and following that things really seemed to get better for the following 9 months. Then suddenly last August a couple of things happened over a two week period and she said she wanted a separation. We went through counseling and she repeatedly said she wasn't sure if she wanted a separation or a divorce.

At the beginning of this year the counselor pushed her to make a decision and she decided divorce and we began the process, but Covid stopped it.

Since the beginning of the year I also started personal counseling. I found that it began to help me. I imagine I could call this time in my life a midlife crisis. Work was a challenge and my marriage was a mess - so I believe that qualifies.

I found some tools that really helped me. The most helpful was the Enneagram which allowed me to recognize who I was - things I hadn't been willing to accept before, and also allowed me to see her and understand her for who she was. It was actually groundbreaking because I always thought her and I were the same. With this new knowledge I realized how incredibly different we are for the first time in our 20 year relationship. Our first mediation session happened in February but I was still hopeful.

My hope was that as I worked on myself and owned my part (really owned it and really saw her) that in 4 months or so she would come around. It stung in April when she got upset and let me know she still wanted a divorce, but then we didn't talk about it and things really seemed to improve.

In June she told me to plan our annual family Christmas trip while flights were on sale. She had been talking about buying a lake home here and there. It seemed like she was mentioning a future with us together in it.

Then to start the month, we talked about our marriage for the first time in three months. And she said things "were getting worse", the virus put "her life on hold", and that she still wanted a divorce. At the same time she asked if we could ever be happy again, if we could ever love again. And she told me that she would always love me, she just wasn't in love with me. She let me know that she wasn't anywhere close to physical intimacy. (We haven't been physically intimate since last August).

It was a devastating and crushing blow. She went out of town 4 days ago and I've been trying to pick up the pieces. I'm so tired. Everyone in my life is telling me that its okay to move on, that I've given it my all, except for one friend of mine who believes in marriage. He said he would never tell me divorce was okay. He said he wishes he could, but its not.

I'm not sure how I'm going to catch my next wind. I've had heartache, depression, and sadness before, but this is like getting punched in the solar plexus and not being able to recover. A loss of breath, a loss of the ability to breath in deeply and letting the air fill my lungs.

I know, the advice is that I haven't "detached" and I must do it immediately. Maybe I can't. Because detaching for me means giving up and moving on.

My next step - that has to be the focus. Just one step at a time. In the past when I've been here the thing I've found the most helpful is to find some time that I can spend in nature that doesn't wreck the rest of my schedule. I guess I'll try that, I'll continue to work on me, and I'll continue to pray -- and not just for me but for all the blessed and wonderful people here that are going through hell, who will never hear "thank you for trying so hard, I'm sorry", but may fight and hear "I'm sorry, but I'm done". God bless you all.