My wife of 15 years (partner of 21.5 years) is leaving me, ostensibly because I never validated her feelings and therefore she emotionally shut down. We also had a contentious relationship with lots of fighting and resentment. Far from ideal, but also lots of good stuff: rewarding careers, 2 small children (D6 and S2), loving family, financial security, beautiful home, etc. Six weeks ago she told me she was extremely unhappy and wanted out. Ten days ago she asked for a separation.
About a week before the separation, she told be she had spoken to a male friend who she had known in elementary school (4th grade)! I now strongly suspect, but have only indirect evidence, that she is leaving me for this guy. I asked her about it directly last night. She acknowledges that talking with him was a "catalyst" in leaving me, but says he's in another relationship and there is no affair. She says she has not met him (he lives out of state) and only talks to him rarely. I frankly do not believe her. When I asked if she had feelings for him, there was just a long pause. I said "That means yes" and she did not deny it. When I asked if he had expressed feelings for her, another long pause, same thing: that means yes.
So it appears my wife may be leaving me, in part at least, to have an affair with a man she has not even seen for 34 years. I am simply dumbfounded. Until now, I had my doubts as to whether my wife was in some sort of midlife crisis, but now it seems obvious. Please comment, but this looks like classic replay behavior. When she first told me about this guy, she said it was nice to communicate with someone who knew her when she was young and innocent, before life had dealt her some cruel and unfair blows. Now I see this affair as her way of trying to go back and recapture that feeling and replay that part of her life.
There was also a lot of stuff on the MLC archives that applied really directly to my situation, especially the stuff about my not validating her feelings. Snodderly's old posts talk about how the MLCer often experienced some sort of abandonment or emotional trauma as a child, during which time their pain and suffering was not validated and sometimes not even noticed or acknowledged. This is definitely true of my W, whose Dad abandoned her Mom when she was 6 for another woman. My W also had other trauma as a teenager that was not noticed by anyone, since her family were all too absorbed in their own struggles to live in the single-parent, post-divorce life.
Anyway, I'd appreciate your comments on my sitch. At some level, it helps to think my wife is in a MLC because then I don't take all the blame as a horrible husband. But knowing this is a MLC does not lessen the pain, loneliness, sense of loss or despair we feel. And it does nothing for my precious, innocent little children, whose lives are about to be turned upside down by separation and possible divorce. They don't even know what's in store for them, and it just kills me to be around them and have to pretend all is well until we can figure out the logistics of the separation.
I think the chances for reconciliation with my wife are very slim. She offers basically no hope, says her feelings have changed and can't imagine them changing back, says she's hopeless about our relationship dynamics ever changing, says all she can remember are fights and bad memories, etc. etc.
I feel real compassion for her obvious pain and confusion, but it is mixed with anger as well as sadness, etc. I know my only hope is to let her go on her journey and to be patient, to persevere, and to give her unconditional love as if she were a friend. I will try, but if she has an affair, I don't know whether I will be able to forgive.
This is all so awful, and there are so many of us going through it. I can't believe we are all living this nightmare, and I can't believe it might last for years and still end in divorce.
