Been reading the forum for about 2 to 3 months already and reading what everyone is going through, its comforting to know that im not the only one going through this but also sad to know how many others are suffering through this.
My wife left about 6 months ago and moved back accross the country to where we stayed together for 4 years, she took a job there less than a month after we moved to be closer to our families. She is 24 and i am 32, been married for 3 years and together for 6, no children luckily. Havent seen her since then and she has been getting progressively colder towards me and would send me long messages blaming me for everything and saying its my fault she left, i made alot of the mistakes that this site warns against (begging, pleading, reasoning and trying to fonvince her to give us another chance). I found out a few days ago that she is seeing a friend of mine, i guess he was a bit her friend too while we were together. She is planning on filing for divorce soon.
I have wanted to make this marriage work and i havent been able to detach fully, the last few days i have kind of given up hope and think that divorce is better. She cheated on me before we got married and she blamed me for that too. She did show a bit of remorse and i forgave her but the last year before she left she would go see friends and stay out till 1am sometimes and would message other guys and when i got upset or confronted her she would always say she did nothing wrong. I know i am a difficult person and i was controlling and i didnt try connect with her emotionally as i should have, she did try talk to me about her unhappiness but i was always too stubborn to make the change in myself. I believe this is all happening for a reason and i have been growing in my faith and reading alot these last few months. If it is in gods will then we can make it work, whether the divorce goes through or not.
Not sure what advice i am looking for, just wanted to share and if anyone can give some advice it would be great.
Ace, sorry that you are going through this. I know this has to be the most painful thing emotionally you've gone through. The pain of a S stepping outside of the MR and involving a third party is devastating.
If I read this right you were 29 and she was 21 when you married. she was 18 and you were 26 when you started dating. Before I met my W I dated a 19 year-old. I was 27, so the age difference is almost the same. The R didn't last for one big reason: we both were in completely different places in our life. I was established, earning good money living on my own, with an eye to the future. She was in college, living for the moment, really wanting to have fun. She wasn't ready for as serious, committed relationship even if sometimes she verbalized that it was what she wanted. After we broke up I moved on and met my now W. The 19 year-old went through several years of dating around, breaking hearts, and eventually settled down and married in her mid-20s.
I have seen that sometimes a late-teen, early-20s, woman will set aside the "party girl" mentality of their college years, but then at some point become resentful, especially if she has done so to be with someone that is several years older in a different place in their life. My guess is that there is a bit of this going on with your W. I know that hearing this doesn't make it any easier, but I am trying to show you what you may be up against here.
So obviously the best thing that you can do is just to let go, move forward, focus on you, and leave her to deal with her own issues and feelings. I see you mentioning you were controlling, would you describe your relationship with her, especially as she started to rebel with the going out and staying out late, messaging other guys, as more of a father-daughter dynamic? Your goal is to focus on yourself, leave her to figure things out. Depending on how patient you can be, she may wake up one day (probably WAY in the future, think years) and realize that what she had was really what she wanted. But that awakening has to come from inside of her, there is nothing you can say or do to cause that to happen.
That last part is one of the hardest things for LBSs to get a grip on, that they have NO control over the situation. Since you admit to being controlling (I suffered from that too), it can be a particular struggle for you. LBSs struggle with the lack of control: lack of control over their WAS, over their situation, and over what the future holds.
I like your attitude about leaving it to God's will. That shows a desire, intellectually if not emotionally, to accept your lack of control. Foster that. Channel that. Use that attitude to go out and GAL! LBSs that GAL the least struggle the most (the board is full of examples). Continue to 180. If she decides to come back and give it a shot, show her that you are no longer controlling, and change that father-daughter dynamic that may have crept into your interactions. Continue to self-improve! (You mention faith, I am a big believer in reconnecting with your religious beliefs through times like this if you are so inclined.) And finally, work on detachment. You say you struggle to detach, everyone does. It is a rare person that can get what detachment really means, and employ it right away. So keep working on it. It is a journey, it isn't a light-switch. So keep trekking towards it.
Ace, keep us updated. We are here to support and help as much as we can.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018