She did WAW, then I did EA, now I'm DBing...poorly

[Joe1981]

OK, this is a long, messy story with many poor decisions on my part. I will do this in a series of short, anecdotal pieces so it is more digestible.
My W and I met via a completely random IM she sent me way back in the AIM days 9 1/2 years ago. I was in college in ID, and she was in college in WI...not close at all. We had a fantastic long distance relationship and she visited me twice, then moved out that summer after she graduated...begin the long downhill slide.
5 1/2 years of marriage together and 2 kids (S:5, D:3 1/2) and she's done on 5/9/14. It's been exceptionally rocky since then, but I still have hope. I'll continue with more of the story as soon as I can.

[Joe1981]

OK, to add to the story. Our marriage fell apart because I've been a crap husband. When we met and she visited, I had lost a pretty good amount of weight and weighed somewhere under 245lbs (not thin, but better than before). When she moved out here, I put the weight back on and kept it on. I've been right around 300 for the majority of our relationship. This took a huge toll over time. I snored loudly so we couldn't sleep in the same bed, to ML was terrible for her so we only were really ML to conceive our children.
In addition, I never learned to listen to her. We'd fight, and she pinpoint the things that she wasn't happy with (my weight, not helping her enough, me not standing up to my family) and we'd have the argument. After it blew over, I'd take a deep breath and "try" my best...only I'd probably only really gotten between 5-10% of what she'd told me. So the real problems never got better.
Finally, she's had enough and on May 9, she said she was done.

[Joe1981]

Continuing; after she dropped the bomb, I lost my mind.
I tried convincing her that she shouldn't do this, divorce would be terrible for the kids, blah blah blah...all the really good stuff that pushes the WAW further away. I made my "last gasp" effort when she went to visit family in WI at the end of May. I tried to do a really good job w/ keeping the house clean and upon her return I was very kind to her and sort of acted like nothing happened. She leveled me w/ her rejection of me at that point. I'd learned nothing yet, so it was like a bomb went off. I gave up and then made things worse.
I had learned that I needed friends, so in reaching out to old friends and acquaintances I blabbed about my troubles to many of them. From there, I got into a friendship with an OW. This friendship turned flirty and became an EA. I didn't even really realize what I was doing at the time except (I thought) trying to rebuild my shattered life. I had even had this OW and her kids come swimming w/ me and my kids at my parents' house. Idiot!!! I'm so glad she intercepted a text I'd sent to a buddy and blew the lid off the whole thing on the 4th of July. Didn't know it yet though and went reactive and told about 40 mutual friends on Facebook about the divorce and the pain...even saying they should unfriend her. Ugh, what a jerk.
When I saw her in pain, I realized that I still love her deeply and that I'm not going to give up without a fight. I found DR at the library and have begun trying to use the divorce busting techniques to repair my M. To be continued...

[Joe1981]

Without overloading with much more information, I have to get her trust back. I've lost 40 lbs since the BD, so there's one positive beginning. I'm trying to be good about getting the house cleaned up before she gets home from work (I'm a teacher and it's summer break). And somehow I have to DO enough other good things to get her to see that I finally get it. I'm sort of applying a bunch of 180 concepts, a little LRT, and trying to validate her complaints instead of argue or excuse my mistakes.

[MrBond]

So have you read DB or DR?

What have you been doing to change the things that she didn't like?

[DaddyLongShanks]

OK, to add to the story. Our marriage fell apart because I've been a crap husband. When we met and she visited, I had lost a pretty good amount of weight and weighed somewhere under 245lbs (not thin, but better than before). When she moved out here, I put the weight back on and kept it on. I've been right around 300 for the majority of our relationship. This took a huge toll over time.

This is a large weight gain. Blood pressure will go up, energy levels will go down, it's not as attractive. I'd drop the weight for myself back to a weight that women like me at. I bet you its 220lbs or less on you. It's going to take a while, it took a while to balloon up, and it will take a while to get it off. But you can get it all off and then some in 6 months. In 3 months you will have 20-30 lbs off if you stick to an excersize regiment and monitor your food intake.

I snored loudly so we couldn't sleep in the same bed, to ML was terrible for her so we only were really ML to conceive our children.

Snoring was likely from the weight gain. If you truly lost this one from the gain, take it as a lesson learned. Women will love you, yes, but they have limits. Even then you have to take care of your body and your appearance, for yourself and to have best attraction towards the females you like.

In addition, I never learned to listen to her. We'd fight, and she pinpoint the things that she wasn't happy with (my weight, not helping her enough, me not standing up to my family) and we'd have the argument. After it blew over, I'd take a deep breath and "try" my best...only I'd probably only really gotten between 5-10% of what she'd told me. So the real problems never got better.
Finally, she's had enough and on May 9, she said she was done.

I wouldn't worry about it, if it's gone it's gone... At this point you do need to be responsible for yourself and stop pointing fingers.

So there is no more not standing for yourself, and there is no more carring 60 extra lbs on your body and not doing anything about it.

[Joe1981]

MrBond,
I've lost 40 lbs, started getting after household chores w/out being asked, tried to minimize the pleading, reasoning, etc with her. I'm trying to stay out of fights, but she'll pull me in sometimes. I'm just doing everything I can to 180 and get her to see that my eyes are open now and I'm digging in to do the work. She hasn't moved out YET, so this far she's given me the gift of time. If only I hadn't wasted 2 months.

[MrBond]

And so how long have you been implementing these changes?

[Joe1981]

DLS, I hope my further posts answered to some of your points.

MrBond,
I have done a lot of varied nonsensical attempts to GAL when I went nuts in May and June. This was on the advice of friends and their advice wasn't wrong, but I went about it in a bunch of very wrong ways. I also didn't figure out how to not pursue. The huge explosion of my EA began on the 4th and really came to a head on the 6th of July when she broke down in front of me at the hurt of me having the kids around the OW and her kids. Talk about a bucket of ice water and a slap across the face by a ton of bricks.
Since the 6th, I have tried to 180 as much as I possibly can. I read a lot of DR and part of another book called "It's (Mostly) His Fault" which is really great at showing how men need to learn to actually pay attention to what their wives are saying, not saying, needing, etc. And that in many cases, if men are better husbands, they will end up with great wives since what many women are missing is a man who actually is IN the relationship with them. It hits on the same concept as DR in that one person in the R can change the other with their actions.
I've tried to do a better job of listening to my WAW and have been learning to validate when she talks to me about what was wrong in out marriage.
As much as I'm trying to not pursue and talk about the R, she has continued to push me on the problems which leads to some of that talk. It is also really hard to go dim/dark at a time when we still live together and we have 2 small kids.
Finally, I'm trying to stay active, be fun and positive, and find ways to GAL, which is hard because I have very few friends.
There's a lot more going on, but I'm trying to keep this remotely short.

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying."

[Joe1981]

Update:
She keeps texting and/or emailing me constantly to tell me why she wants the D. Yesterday was going over my failing at boundaries with my parents. Today it is the EA w/ the OW, that I foolishly allowed to develop. I said some regrettable things to my W as that situation blew up. Today she is all over me about those mistakes.

I'm trying to remember a critical point about the LRT: Believe none of what you hear and less than half of what you see. I'm trying to stick to that line as she keeps reasserting that she is done. I'm doing my best to validate and learn from what she has to say. I'm not sure if she's going to move out at the end of the month...and I'm not sure how I feel about it. If she were to move out and not file yet, I'd still be getting time and I'd have more time to GAL. That's been my biggest problem, I have no time to GAL.