Thanks for the words of wisdom, DnJ. Your advice and insight are like a salve soothing a burn. Admittedly, I backslid a little and snooped around recently. I saw that W had paid for some online sex course thing and confronted her about it. Definitely not adhering to DB principles, obviously. She gave some excuse about how it was recommended to her, female empowerment, blah blah.
I know snooping around isn't generally recommended, but didn't SteveLW say "trust but verify"?
Here is a brief recap of my situation:
-August 2019: stepdaughter goes away to college. W cries on the drive home after we move her in. In hindsight, I'm wondering if this was a kickoff point for W's MLC.
-March 2020: Covid. Everyone is home. I don't necessarily remember more stress in our particular household, but there seems to be plenty of literature about Covid / lockdowns straining relationships.
-November 2021: W asks me to help fix her laptop and flies across the kitchen to grab it away when a Facebook Messenger window pops up. Everything happened too quickly for me to read anything. Lots of arguing about it that day.
-December 2021: we take a trip as a couple right before New Year's. Everything seems fine.
-February-ish to March/April 2022: W seems to be growing distant and starts seeing a counselor in March. This turned out to be largely an attempt at painting me as a bad husband / "narcissist" and more or less legitimizing her EA and possibly PA. The "bomb drop" came in the form of me pressing her about what was going on. There was a reference to how it might just be a phase she was going through and she didn't "feel the same" towards me. (insert eye roll emoji)
-May to July 2022: probably the height of "going through the motions" in the household. There were still bedroom relations but almost all talk was limited to kid-related stuff. We do three ill-advised joint counseling sessions and a "keeping up appearances" summer trip with the kids. Before this past week, the last time I snooped around was I believe the end of July.
-August to November 2022: I try to apply DB principles and adopt that mindset for the most part. No snooping around, which I feel helps my mental state, but in doing so, I guess I was burying my head in the sand. W pulls back on going to her counselor and no talk of divorce or splitting up. Some ups and downs in there, I'm sure (going by memory here). I largely stabilize at work with not thinking about the marriage situation all the time.
-December 2022: Mostly a good month. W seems a little less guarded with her phone and even shows me a few things on it, lets son play on it. Probably a mirage. W increases non-sexual touch at bedtime (in addition to sexual touch at times)- back scratches, etc. which had been absent for quite a while. General conversation is almost about normal. We talk about things other than just the kids. W goes to get breast augmentation procedure, texting me often and "after" photos. W vents about my parents increasingly, a frequent source of conflict. I try to validate but once or twice make an offhand comment like "Why do you care about them so much? It's not going to matter before too long" (a reference to splitting up).
-Late December: discover the sex site online course thing. Open separate bank account the next day. See that W had messaged her counselor about it, venting. Also in there:
W: "I feel guilty and awful now, I mean, it is because of things I'm doing" Counselor: "Don't know what to tell you about that" W: "It's all jealousy and wants to punish me" W: "But he'll go along just fine without a care in the world and then suddenly decides to fixate on me doing something. Nothing has changed, he just decides to get obsessive."
(No further reply from counselor). That reference to me "going along just fine" is obviously where I'm trying to DB and not act controlling. So anyway - extremely long-winded recap of where not snooping might get you - obliviousness.
